[HPFGU-OTChatter] apple in Eden

[Jen Faulkner]

On Sun, 25 Nov 2001, Amy Z wrote:

> Rita wrote on the main list:
> 
> >Btw, I have been told that the fruit in Eden was an apple because 'apple'
> >and 'evil' are both 'malum' in Latin, so I've given the Malfoys the
> >Kallisti apple as the crest for their arms.
> 
> Cool crest, but whoever told you that has a very shaky grasp of the Bible.  
> Genesis was written in Hebrew, not Latin, and besides, it says nothing about 
> an apple; the fruit Eve and Adam eat is referred to simply as "fruit," p'ri.

Like Rita, I've heard this theory before, and it usually is proposed as
an explanation for how the apple came to be the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge, since, as you mention, Amy, the Bible simply calls it a
fruit.  The idea is that some early Christians, either working with an
imperfect/different text or just in oral discussions, heard the tree of
good and evil (e.g., arbor malî et bonî) as the tree of an apple
(e.g., arbor mâlî), vel. sim.  The circumflexes there are to represent
long vowels -- note that the words for evil (malum) and apple
(mâlum) are not identical, any more than 'ate' and 'apple' have the same
a vowel in English.  Since the theory applies to native Latin speakers,
I'm not impressed with this as a theory of oral confusion, though I
could buy it as a written confusion.  

After all, the apple does have to get into the popular discourse about
the story somewhere, since it *doesn't* come from the Hebrew (or
Vulgate, for that matter, I don't think, though I haven't checked) text
of Genesis.

--jen :)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

"Clamavit lupus, »Ergo huffabo, et puffabo, et tuam domum inflabo!«  Et
huffavit, et puffavit, et totam domum inflavit!" -- Tres Porcelli.

jen's fics: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jfaulkne/fan/ (URL change!)
jen's LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/lysimache/